When Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras decided to call a referendum on a bailout offer from Greece’s creditors — an offer that expired before Sunday’s referendum — he informed the Greek nation in a televised speech. At 1 a.m.

Mediterranean lifestyles are different. Greece’s chosen style of living is dependent on others’ choices.

Tsipras is a peculiar phenomenon, a defiant mendicant. He urged voters to do what they did. In voting “no”, they asserted that Greece’s dignity is incompatible with loans that come with conditions attached. Tsipras’ Syriza Party insists, however, that dignity is compatible with perpetual dependency on the forbearance and productivity of others.

The drive for deeper EU integration is fuelled by the traditional socialist goal of expanding the reach of a mandarin class of supposed experts in social rationality

Karl Marx, an intellectual for whom labour as most 19th-century people experienced it was only a rumour, detested the division of labour because it “alienated” workers. But although Syriza partakes of the European left’s unending romance with Marxism, its program requires a particular division of labour: Greece will live better than its economic productivity can sustain, and more productive Europeans will pay the difference. Until socialism arrives, Marx said, “the worker . . . is only himself when he does not work,” a sentiment many Greeks embrace by retiring on government pensions at age 50.

Left-wing parties in other southern European countries — Portugal, Spain, Italy — are watching to see if Greece can turn weakness, indeed prostration, into strength: continue to rescue us or we will collapse into a contagious mess. Actually, the risk of economic contagion is slight: Greece’s economy is about the size of Louisiana’s, and is two per cent of the eurozone’s, and markets have discounted a Greek default. The real danger is a political contagion — a flight from free-market reforms elsewhere.

It is said that the European Union is a splendid idea but that the euro — the common currency — is a bad idea. Actually, the euro is a bad idea that is the logical application of an even worse idea — the European Union.

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By the middle of the 20th century, after the Somme and the Holocaust, Europeans were terrified of themselves. This propelled the movement toward European unity, yet another of Europe’s misbegotten enthusiasms.

One from which Margaret Thatcher, a daughter of the “Mother of Parliaments,” quickly recoiled. In 1988, she said: “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.” In the general election campaign earlier this year, Prime Minister David Cameron promised a referendum on British membership in the EU. It will be more important than this year’s parliamentary elections because it will determine whether future parliamentary elections will matter.

The EU exists to require nations to “pool” their sovereignties in unelected, unaccountable bureaucracies. The retrograde point of the EU is to leech from national parliaments powers that were hard-won over many centuries of struggle. National governments rendered unserious by the EU are apt to regress to adolescence, as with Syriza’s referendum — a tantrum masquerading as governance.

Seventy years after the guns fell silent, the drive to turn “Europe” from a geographic into a political expression lacks the excuse of preventing continental convulsions caused by nationalistic militarisms. Now, the drive for “ever closer union” — which means ever-more attenuated democracy — is fuelled by the traditional socialist (and, in America, the progressive) goal of expanding the reach of a mandarin class of supposed experts in social rationality.

Today, the European Parliament has 24 official languages, and the fate of “Europe” is said to be linked to the future of ramshackle Greece. There, on Sunday night, people poured into Athens’ Syntagma Square to celebrate having told the creditors to send more money with fewer strings attached. Many celebrants came to the square by subway, which did not charge riders because capital controls, a consequence of five years of negotiations with creditors and evasions of reality, had made currency scarce.

On Sept. 30, 1938, when French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier’s plane bringing him back from the Munich conference was landing in Paris, he feared that the crowd gathered at the airport would be furious because of the concessions that had been made to Hitler. When Daladier saw that the crowd was cheering, he reportedly said: “The bloody fools.” After the 61 per cent “no” vote was announced in Sunday’s referendum, there was dancing in the streets of Athens.

Thursday marked the 200th anniversary of Waterloo. It was a fascinating battle not just because it meant the end of Napoleon Bonaparte, but also because no single nation won it. It also has something useful to say as Britain draws lines of engagement ahead of a referendum on whether or not to leave the European Union.

The essential details are well-known. The Duke of Wellington chose to make his stand on some farmland outside Brussels, at the head of a British-led army, two-thirds of which wasn’t British. This allied force of Brits, Germans, Dutch and Belgians survived the morning thanks in significant part to a few hundred soldiers who heroically held onto the strategically located Hougoumont farm.

Napoleon’s troops were not broken, however, until a regrouped Prussian army under Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Bluecher — defeated by the French and crushed beneath a horse just two days earlier — arrived on the battlefield late in the day. It was, as Wellington said afterward, “a damn close-run thing.”

As a Brit, how does one think about this? Not, surely, as a British victory. As proof that Germans are Britain’s reliable allies against the French? Hardly, after World Wars I and II. The more obvious conclusion is that Britain is a country inevitably engaged in Europe’s affairs, and able to prevail only with European allies.

In Britain, however, that’s not a popular way to think about Europe. Margaret Thatcher encapsulated the alternative philosophy wonderfully when, some years after being forced to step down as prime minister, she returned to a Tory party conference and said in a dinner speech:

“My friends, we are quite the best country in Europe.

“In my lifetime all our problems have come from mainland Europe and all the solutions have come from the English-speaking nations across the world.”

This is a state of mind. It says that the best thing to do with Europe is to stand against it or keep it at arm’s length, sticking instead with Britain’s true friends — the Americans, the Canadians and the Australians. The world view that goes with this sees the British at heart as a seafaring nation, with a “buccaneering” spirit best symbolized by the lionized, yet piratical, exploits of Sir Walter Raleigh as he plundered gold from Spanish galleons returning from the New World. British sea power built an empire outside Europe, after all.

FileThe Duke of Wellington

This state of mind suggests, too, that for reasons of language and culture the Brits are much closer to their Anglo cousins than their European ones. A very intelligent Birmingham chief executive of a sewage tanker company once explained this to me by getting out a paper clip from his desk and setting it next to one he had picked up while doing business in France. They were shaped differently, and that demonstrated, he said, the incompatibility between French and British ways of thinking.

And yet, even in 1815, when Britain had an overseas empire, it could not ignore Europe. The Napoleonic wars had driven Britain’s national debt above 200 percent of gross domestic product, and a substantial faction in London argued to let Napoleon have Europe, rather than fight, when he escaped from exile on Elba. Yet Britain had to get involved in the continent’s economy and power struggles, and couldn’t win except by allying itself with other Europeans.

At Waterloo, that meant siding with Germans against the French. In the Crimean War, 40 years later, it meant siding with the French against the Russians. In the World Wars, it meant siding with the French and eventually the Russians against the Germans — only by this point Britain couldn’t prevail without help from the U.S., too.

Britain is, of course, distinctive. It’s an island, protected from invasion by both Napoleon and Hitler by a 25- mile-wide stretch of water. It has a common law legal system and an overdependence on financial services that makes it Europe’s banking center. But the lessons of Waterloo are probably more useful today than the World War II memories Thatcher evoked to support her growing hostility to the EU “superstate.”

The coming referendum on whether Britain should stay in the EU, now expected sometime next year, is likely to be dominated on one side by Thatcher’s mythology of British separateness, and the corresponding belief that only if Britain frees itself from the EU can it again become that free-spirited, buccaneering, enterprising nation.

In reality, Britain would remain more European than buccaneer, or for that matter American — with a tax base high enough to provide universal health care, safety regulations that make most European governments look like risk-takers, and a meddling centralized state more familiar to Parisians than New Yorkers. With so little to gain, the British may not want to risk being on their own, outside a resentful EU that unites the Prussians, Dutch and French against it. I suspect Wellington would agree.

LONDON — Private papers belonging to Margaret Thatcher have been saved for the nation after her family donated them to Churchill College, Cambridge, in lieu of inheritance tax on her £4.7 million estate.

Sir Mark Thatcher and his sister, Carol, are among the family members who have benefited from the arrangement, which will more than halve their tax bill of £1.8 million.

The documents, which will form part of a public archive at Churchill, one of the colleges of Cambridge University, were valued independently at around £1 million, the amount by which the heirs’ tax bill will be reduced.

The arrangement, made under Arts Council England’s Acceptance In Lieu (AIL) scheme, is likely to prove controversial at a time when the government is imposing deep cuts on public spending.

But sources have told The Daily Telegraph that the family was offered more money by an American university for the papers, meaning they have turned down a potential windfall in order to keep the papers in Britain.

File: AP/Martin CleaverMinister Margaret Thatcher shakes hands with Nelson Mandela in 1990. Lady Thatcher's personal reflections on key events during her premiership are included in the papers.

The bundle of personal papers, which are understood to include “four or five” handwritten accounts of the former prime minister’s reflections on some of the key events of her 11-year premiership, have been donated to the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, based at Churchill College, which published them on its website Thursday.

Lady Thatcher donated the bulk of her personal papers, diaries and even her handbag to the foundation while she was still alive, but some papers remained in her possession and formed part of her estate when she died in 2013.

They were already on loan to Churchill College and will now remain there permanently after being donated to the foundation.

The personal papers are separate from Lady Thatcher’s governmental papers, all of which are held by the National Archives in London.

Lady Thatcher left a third of her estate to Sir Mark, 61, a third to his twin sister Carol and a third to a trust fund for her grandchildren Michael, 25, and Amanda, 20. The executors of her will are understood to have approached Arts Council England with the offer of the papers, which were assessed by an independent panel of experts who advised on their market value and their importance.

The Arts Council’s president is the television executive Sir Peter Bazalgette. His organization has the power to instruct Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to issue inheritance tax credits for donated objects, after the power was delegated to the Arts Council by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in 2005.

An announcement is expected to be made today by John Whittingdale, the Culture Secretary, who was also Lady Thatcher’s last political secretary, but a spokesman for the DCMS pointed out that he plays no role in deciding who receives tax credits under the scheme.

A source close to the negotiations said: “It’s wonderful that these papers have been saved for the nation rather than going to America, which was the alternative. The scheme has allowed Lady Thatcher’s heirs to reduce their tax bill, but in truth it was a highly altruistic decision by them because they could have got more money for the papers in the US.”

It’s wonderful that these papers have been saved for the nation rather than going to America, which was the alternative

It was unclear last night whether the documents had been included in Lady Thatcher’s will or whether they had ever been assessed for inheritance tax purposes before the family decided to donate them.

But a spokesman for HMRC said all personal possessions left when someone dies were valued to determine the overall burden of inheritance tax. Inheritance tax on possessions other than property is payable at the end of the sixth month after death, but when beneficiaries have indicated that they want to donate items to the nation they are given a tax credit for the initial valuation, which can be adjusted through a rebate or payment if the Arts Council’s experts later give a different valuation.

It is not the first time the Thatcher family has attracted attention over their inheritance tax arrangements.

After her death it emerged that Lady Thatcher’s £12-million home in Belgravia was owned by a company based in the British Virgin Islands, whose shareholders were friends of the former prime minister acting as nominees for concealed beneficiaries.

The AIL scheme, which has an annual cap of £30 million, was used 23 times in 2013-14, resulting in £44.3 million-worth of art and other objects becoming public property.

In the early 1980, a British novelist wrote a political thriller set in the near future which posited that the security services, newspaper magnates and the United States conspired to surreptitiously depose a leftist prime minister loosely modelled on Labour politician Tony Benn. A Very British Coup inspired a popular BBC mini-series of the same name in 1988; a remake, entitled Secret State, appeared in 2012.

Something like this is alleged by author Frederic Bastien to have occurred in the course of the patriation of the Canadian constitution in 1982. Except that, this being Canada, the federal government, the British government, and two judges on the Supreme Court of Canada are alleged to have conspired against Quebec and the Canadian people to foist an unwanted constitution upon them. Bastien’s charges, which were major news all across the country, are based on documents he found in the British archives. These allegedly show that Chief Justice Bora Laskin and Justice Willard Estey had back-channel communications with British and Canadian authorities before the hearing of the Patriation Reference and while the decision was being drafted. This “violation of the separation of powers,” according to Bastien, amounted to a “Coup d’état à la Cour supreme,” rendering the decision null and void. (In the English version, the chapter title is slightly milder: “Coup at the Court”).

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When Bastien’s book was first published in French in 2013, it provoked a huge controversy in Quebec, leading the Quebec National Assembly to demand that Ottawa release all documents in its possession relating to the patriation process (more on that later.) The Quebec francophone media treated the “revelations” as the equivalent of the Wikileaks scandal, casting Bastien in the role of Julian Assange.

Trouble is, Bastien’s book, now available in English translation, was more about his own “coup de théâtre” than a “coup d’état.” His charges are based on five alleged extra-judicial “interventions” by Chief Justice Laskin and one by Justice Estey in the patriation process. I have analyzed these in detail in a published article and found all but one to be without merit. Even the one charge with some possible merit hardly amounts to constitutional subversion.

Bastien was so excited by his findings in the British archives that he failed to cross-check against easily available sources showing that allegedly confidential information was actually public knowledge. Case in point: in the French edition of his book, Bastien quoted a telegram from British High Commissioner John Ford dated March 26, 1981, reporting that he had learned “confidentially” that the Supreme Court had decided to hold the hearing of the Patriation Reference much earlier than expected, beginning on April 28. The telegram further reported that Laskin “gave the impression (to a federal government source please protect) that he hoped to hand down the Court’s views before the parliamentary process was complete in the U.K.”

The English were not a party to the proceedings, and it is unclear whether Laskin disclosed anything about the substance of the disagreement

In fact there was nothing confidential about the April 28 date. Laskin met with counsel for the federal government and for Manitoba on March 26 and, against strong objections from the federal government’s counsel, set April 28 for the hearing. This information circulated immediately upon counsel leaving the meeting, and was reported in the newspapers the next day. As for the “impression” Laskin gave to a “federal source,”someone may have overheard Laskin expressing a “hope” about the timing of the decision, but this is hardly constitutional subversion.

The author has rewritten this passage in the English translation to take account of the additional evidence I raised in my critique, but maintains the accusation of illegitimate behaviour on Laskin’s part. Go figure. A new afterword in the English edition also attempts to respond to my critiques and those of others, but adds little to the existing discussion.

Bastien fleshes out his accusation against Justice Estey a bit more in the English version. Ford reported meeting with Estey, who thought the draft bill attached to Trudeau’s bill defective; he (Estey) had “mentioned his fears to an official of the Department of Justice.” That was probably indiscreet, but it was before anyone had challenged the process in court. And the comment did not even relate to the constitutionality of the bill, but as to whether another drafting technique might have accomplished patriation more effectively. Nor did it purport to be the opinion of the Court as a whole. Bastien seems to have agreed, as in the English edition the caption under Estey’s photo no longer asserts, as it did in the French edition, that the judge (translation) “informed the British of the intentions of the [Supreme] Court.” That accusation was in no way supported by Bastien’s evidence.

The one incident that does give rise to some concern is a meeting between Laskin and the English attorney general Sir Michael Havers in July 1982, in which Laskin discussed the timing of the rendering of the decision and disclosed that the judges were in disagreement. The English were not a party to the proceedings, and it is unclear whether Laskin disclosed anything about the substance of the disagreement. Still, if this incident had become known and someone had complained to the Canadian Judicial Council, it is possible that Laskin’s action might have been found to have compromised the appearance of judicial independence. But this would not lead to the nullity of the decision, especially since it was an advisory opinion in a reference case, not a determination of rights.

But Bastien is not really concerned about constitutional law. His main project is to delegitimate the Supreme Court and the Charter of Rights, his intended audience being nationalist opinion in Quebec, not specialists in constitutional law.

Bastien’s investigations in the British archives were not completely in vain. He provides a plausible explanation as to why Margaret Thatcher unwaveringly supported Trudeau’s initiative in spite of opposition from her own backbench (many of whom were ideologically opposed to a Charter of Rights), and her own dislike of the man. Our pirouetting playboy prime minister was not Thatcher’s cup of tea at all, and his “left liberal” (her term) politics were anathema. Yet she remained his staunch ally throughout the “Battle of London.” Why?

According to Bastien, she suspended judgment on Trudeau’s personality and policies because of her overriding desire to maintain good relations with Canada as part of the Atlantic alliance in the global struggle against communism. She had everything to gain in assisting Trudeau and nothing to gain by encouraging the provinces. Incidentally, this demonstrates why Thatcher was such an effective politician. She had the ability to focus relentlessly on where her political interests lay, and to set aside irrelevancies such as her personal distaste for Trudeau and his politics.

Over 2,000 pages of documents relating to patriation, only slightly redacted, were released to the Quebec government a year ago in response to its FOI request. Joël-Denis Bellavance of La Presse reviewed them in December 2013 and concluded that they contained no indication that the Trudeau government had any advance warning of the content of the Supreme Court’s decision or the date of its release. Bastien does not even refer to this development, so damning to his thesis, in his afterword.

Reagan told Thatcher the total secrecy was needed because of fears that a leak — on the American side, not the British one — might endanger the military operation.

Thatcher had complained about the invasion, saying it would be seen as Western meddling in the internal affairs of an independent country; Reagan seemed anxious to mend fences with one of the U.S.’s closest allies.

In a secret White House tape made public Monday after a Freedom of Information Act request, the contrite president tried to joke his way out of the spat.

“If I were there, Margaret, I’d throw my hat in the door before I came in,” he said.

Thatcher told him there was no need for him to be so cautious, but warned him that the invasion would be tricky.

Reagan goes out of his way during the conversation to assure Thatcher that he had not shut her out over fears the British would leak the information.

AFP/Getty ImagesU.S. soldiers arrest suspected Marxist activists in St George's, the capital of the Grenada Island, on Oct. 30, 1983, three days after U.S. troops, including 800 Marines, invaded the island, ousting the Marxist government.

“I want you to know it was no feeling on our part of lack of confidence at your end. It’s at our end,” he said. “I guess it’s the first thing we have done since I’ve been President in which the secret was actually kept until it happened. But our military and the planning only had – I really have to call it a matter of hours – to put this together.”

In the end, the Reagan’s charm seems to have carried the day. Thatcher thanked him profusely for the call, and asked about his wife, First Lady Nancy Reagan.

“Give her my love,” said Thatcher before cutting off the call so she could return to what she said was a difficult House of Commons debate.

“All right,” Reagan says. “Go get ’em. Eat ’em alive.”

MIKE SARGENT/AFP/Getty ImagesFormer U.S. President Ronald Reagan and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher posing for photographers on the patio outside the Oval Office, Washington, D.C. on July 17, 1987.

Things are quiet again in a special administrative district of China, once better known as Hong Kong. The police have dismantled the last barricades. The last protester to be arrested was a man of 48. No bang so far, and barely a whimper.

It was to be one country, two systems. This is what the historic agreement on the future of Hong Kong stipulated. As worked out between Great Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and China’s Deng Xiaoping in 1984, when Britain’s lease on its Crown Colony expired in 1997, Hong Kong’s ship of state would hoist Mao’s Red China flag, but without letting the Great Helmsman’s crew touch the helm. The good ship Hong Kong would continue sailing for another 50 years with a free enterprise crew, using capitalist charts and destinations.

Some had great hopes for the deal; others saw it as an unfunny joke. To me it seemed a joint Sino-British declaration of faith in the merits of saving face, coupled with officialdom’s evident belief that autocracy + hypocrisy = democracy.

True, in 1984, when Mrs. Thatcher signed freedom’s death warrant for Hong Kong, Tiananmen Square was still five years in the future. In 1997, however, when Britain (a.k.a. “perfidious Albion”) sent Prince Charles to serve the warrant, the Tiananmen massacre was eight years in the past. In spite of all knowledge, there was much rejoicing, with Britain in an Oscar-class performance as the Good Sport, blessing the official ceremonies.

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Although I never liked raining on other people’s charades, I suggested that while Hong Kong rejoining the motherland may be a cause for celebration, a free society being absorbed by a tyranny was not. Had the fate of Hong Kong been decided by a referendum, as envisaged by the United Nations in 1972, there might have been something to celebrate. But Beijing nipped this idea in the bud. It was to be “one country, two systems” with no questions asked. I thought that handing over six million people to the Chinese politburo, along with the world’s eighth largest economy, was something to celebrate only for people with a taste for the anomalous.

Ever since then there has been a quest for a silver lining in the dark historic cloud of having handed six million loyal residents of a British Crown colony to mass murderer Mao’s Marxist mob without even an offer of asylum. The quest has given rise to certain myths. The first, that Chinese communism is “different” because it’s Chinese, isn’t a myth, only irrelevant. Fascism in Franco’s Spain was different from fascism in Mussolini’s Italy, but this wouldn’t have made abandoning anyone who ought to have been protected to Spain’s El Caudillo less of a betrayal than abandoning them to Italy’s Il Duce.

The second myth is that China is “not the same country” as it was in 1989, the year of the massacre in Tienanman Square. Brave try, but the protesters behind their flimsy barricades in the business district of Mong Kok demonstrate that it is. That’s why they’re protesting, or have until yesterday.

It’s possible that the last 25 years have brought about a Hong-Kongification of the entire country

Twenty-five years ago, China was a dictatorship, relatively primitive and impoverished. When denying people free speech and assembly rights, the repressive state advanced on them in tanks. Today China is a dictatorship, relatively sophisticated and prosperous. When denying people free speech and assembly rights, the repressive state advances on them behind riot shields, wielding wire cutters. That shows a cozier tyranny, not a different country.

In 1997 another myth held that China’s leaders wouldn’t want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. But while new-style communists may like wealth, their main interest is in retaining power. Hong Kong’s vibrant economy would be of little benefit to them if it cost them their rule.

Seventeen years ago, amidst the fireworks celebrating Hong Kong’s return to China, some wondered if it was possible for capitalism to continue producing economic growth in an atmosphere of political repression. I thought it was eminently possible. Capitalism managed to co-exist with some murderous tyrannies, including Hitler’s Germany. While hardly an attractive model, it was available to Hong Kong’s business people – or to Western investors – if they had the stomach for it.

Thirty years after the Thatcher-Deng agreement, the one country of the formula – China – looms large, but the two systems are hard to discern. Hong Kong’s inhabitants periodically take to the streets to look for “their” system, but it remains elusive. Democracy’s umbrellas provide little protection against the downpour of Oriental despotism. That’s the bad news; the good news is that the protesters aren’t totally drenched. What’s protecting them? Some suggested relative freedom in Hong Kong had a chance of undermining communism in China. I doubted it and still do. China’s rulers are unlikely to let the Hong Kong tail wag the mainland dog. But it’s possible that the last 25 years have brought about a Hong-Kongification of the entire country. If so, Mrs. Thatcher may not have been altogether wrong about signing on with Comrade Deng 30 years ago.

On Oct. 14, the winner of the $60,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction will be announced in Toronto. In anticipation of this award, the National Post presents excerpts from all five nominated books this week. Today’s excerpt is taken from Shopping for Votes: How Politicians Choose Us and We Choose Them, by Susan Delacourt.

Almost as soon as Canadian political players fully embraced polling and advertising in the 1970s, earnest voices began to be raised in buyers’ regret. No question, people were having fun with all the new commercial tools for politicking, but what would they do to the higher calling of the profession? And so, for the next couple of decades, Canadian politicos seesawed between arguments over just how much our democratic system should be getting mixed up in the tools of the consumer marketplace. While that debate carried on, though, the country started to amass most of the raw ingredients of the all-out political marketing and consumer citi­zenship that would dominate the 21st century. Resistance would prove futile.

In the midst of the 1979 election campaign, a clearly grumpy Geoffrey Stevens lamented in his much-read Globe and Mail column how politics was turning into the “Selling of the Canadian Politician,” and in the process, untethering the voting public from the true, more civic-minded purpose of politics:

“The 120-odd journalists who are travelling with Messrs. Trudeau, Clark and Broadbent today are less political reporters than they are stage props for the evening news. Dutifully, inanely, we follow Mr. Clark through the Syncrude project at Fort McMurray, Mr. Broadbent through a hospital in Regina, Mr. Trudeau through a boys’ and girls’ club in Saint John. Does Mr. Clark actually know anything more about the problems of small business than he did before he strode, rapidly, through a box company in Kitchener? Is Mr. Broadbent’s understanding of the complexities of food pricing deepened because he was able to pose in front of the produce counter at a co-op in St. Boniface? Is Mr. Trudeau more sensitive to the diversity of the Canadian soul because he lit a string of firecrackers on a street in Chinatown in Vancouver?”

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Stevens complained that campaigns had become a physical endurance test, rather than a challenge to inform and educate the citizenry. Somehow, he said, Canadian political journalists were helping to push the myth that if a politician could perform like an ad pitchman, he could also run a country: “What nonsense. What rubbish. All that’s being established is that the three leaders, prop­erly briefed, are able to make painstakingly stage-managed public appearances without falling into the orchestra pit. We are learning nothing about which man would make the best prime minister or how he would conduct himself if entrusted with that high office.” Even the earnest New Democrats were embracing the slick new tools of the political trade, setting aside an unprecedented $1-million for advertising in the 1979 campaign with leader Ed Broadbent.

Terry O’Malley, ever upbeat, hauled out his Underwood type­writer and hammered out a defence of advertising’s place in politics for the pages of the Globe and Mail: “For me, advertising is one of the real bases of democracy. It is the voice of reporting on one of the most important fundamentals in our society: the goods and services supplied to the marketplace.” He also dropped an interesting bit of advertising-industry intelligence. Apparently, the most disliked form of ads were ones for household products such as soap and deodorant. However, O’Malley said, these were also the ads that proved to be most effective, simply because the soap and deodorant corporations had the money to saturate the airwaves.

Advertising and marketing were not just shaping poli­tics and election campaigns, but their influence was being felt in government too, in between elections

There was a great bit of foreshadowing in O’Malley’s column for the politics to come three decades down the road in Canada, when a federal Conservative party learned that you could make Canadians watch ads they didn’t like and still persuade them to buy your product — as long as you had the resources to carry out a sustained PR effort. O’Malley, with the help of that handy soap metaphor again, was spelling out the formula for the unlikely success of attack ads. It was as simple as this: you may not like them, but they will get in your head anyway, thanks to rote, repeated exposure.

What the Canadian political media was witnessing going into the 1980s, in fact, was just the tip of the iceberg. Or, as Canadian band Bachman-Turner Overdrive sang in the 1970s, “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Advertising and marketing were not just shaping poli­tics and election campaigns, but their influence was being felt in government too, in between elections. The ad gurus were starting to be consulted on what policies would be more attractive to the citi­zens and what measures would be more consumer-friendly. Need a program to fight inflation or hammer out a new constitutional deal? Don’t call the political scientists. Call the ad guys.

There were also political developments unfolding on the world stage at the time, particularly in Britain and the United States, which would prove to be crucial lessons for future generations of Canadian politicos.

A lawyer and a staunch capitalist, Margaret Thatcher, daughter of a greengrocer, had assumed the helm of the British Conservative Party in 1975. Although she had been educated as a scientist, she began her political career in the 1950s as a young MP for the riding of Dartford, a community in England that had been hard hit by the rationing and regulation fervour of postwar Britain. Further political experience, notably as health minister in the early 1970s, had put Thatcher on a constant collision course with unions and state-run enterprise. Tough, hard as nails, Thatcher believed business-minded people were best-placed to handle affairs of state — and political campaigning. Thatcher would seize every opportunity to link politics to shopping, charging through supermarkets with a grocery cart during election campaigns and urging voters to see government finances as a household budget. As she ascended to the prime minister’s job in the late 1970s, pundits would call her “Margaret the Marketed” and her campaign “The Selling of Maggie.”

The Thatcher-led merger of politics and marketing began with a fateful decision to bring advertising experts right into the inner circle of political decision-making in the Conservative Party of Great Britain. Gordon Reece, a former television producer, had been working with Thatcher since 1970, coaching her on how to be more TV-friendly. Reece, almost immediately after his 1978 appointment as director of publicity for the new Conservative leader, sought out a high-flying British advertising firm, Saatchi & Saatchi, to do a total image makeover for the party. As Margaret Scammell wrote in her 1995 book Designer Politics: How Elections Are Won, the advertising firm was given a free hand to do for the party what it had done for its corporate clients:

“The Saatchi team went to work on their new account much as they would any other; its first task was to research consumers’ emotional reaction to the ‘product’ and then to reduce the client’s objectives and most logical appeals to their simplest elements… Saatchi’s stress on the general emotional appeal, rather than particular policy aspects, led them to engage more heavily in qualitative, motivational research rather than quantitative surveys. Saatchi imported qualitative marketing research direct from the commercial world: unlike quantitative research, it does not attempt to produce statistically measurable results. It relies on focus-group discussion and in-depth interviews with voters in target groups. In the commercial field it is used widely at the stage of product development to gain an early indication of consumer reactions. In advertising, it is used frequently to test copy before it is released.”

Thanks to Scammell and others watching the Thatcher and Reagan method of politics, a whole new field of political science was born in this era, known as ‘political marketing’

By the standards of the 21st century this may seem like tame stuff, but it’s impossible to overstate the significance of this development in political culture — probably the true moment when politics and politicians became products for consumer-citizens. This wasn’t just salesmanship. Nor was it advertising. It meant, in fact, deliberately shaping the product to meet and anticipate voters’ demands. That is what the professionals call marketing. And thanks to Scammell and others watching the Thatcher and Reagan method of politics, a whole new field of political science was born in this era, known as “political marketing.”

Political people and politics-watchers often treat the words “advertising” and “marketing” as synonyms. And indeed, it’s true that advertising is a facet of marketing; the distinction is often described as a fuzzy one. But in terms of understanding how poli­tics have been influenced by the consumer world, and what defines political marketing, it’s more useful to see them as stand-alone terms, chronologically. Advertising is what you do after you have a product to sell; marketing is what you do to come up with the product in the first place. If someone knits a sweater and puts it on a table at a bazaar, that’s pure selling. If someone knits a sweater and then puts it on a mannequin, with a sign boasting of the sweat­er’s warmth and comfort, that’s advertising. If the knitter researches which sweaters have sold at the bazaar in previous years, then knits some to meet that demand, or even takes orders for custom-de­signed creations, that’s marketing.

The Canadian ad business didn’t exactly stampede to this notion of marketing when it first emerged. At a business confer­ence in Montreal in April 1974 featuring advertising executives, corporate leaders and academics, the talk of “new marketing” fell on some skeptical ears. In the Toronto Star, reporter Robert Walker went so far as to say the idea sounded “kind of dumb” at first hearing. Business school professors were mainly the people behind the marketing push, Walker wrote, “by which they mean not merely advertising the product but also deciding in the first place what product to make, how and where to make it, how to get it to you and how much to charge.” Some ad executives, Walker reported, detected something vaguely amiss with this approach, fearing it was an unhealthy manipulation of the market, maybe even undemo­cratic. One study of 156 Canadian corporations at the time showed that marketing managers were viewed dimly for “attempting to exercise control over their customers.” But it was obviously a force that couldn’t be resisted, for business or politicians. Who wouldn’t want to get more control of their customers — or their citizens?

What: TIFF press conference for Pride, a comic drama about Margaret Thatcher-era LGBT activists heading to a Welsh mining town to join miners in their fight against the Iron Lady’s shutdown of nationalized industries

At a preview screening in the Welsh city, the mostly Welsh and LGBT audience tittered at in-jokes, said Siân James, recalling how backward Wales was a generation ago. Never mind the influx of gay activists to support the striking miners. “Vegetarianism was a big problem for us,” she said.

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2. The screenwriter deliberately made it seem like activists get action

Street politics brings people together — sometimes intimately. Speaking of one character’s journey, writer Steven Beresford said: “What we’re trying to say is, ‘If you get involved with activism like this, your clothes will get better, your music will get better, and you will get laid.’ “

3. Bill Nighy felt like apologizing for Thatcher at the time. Still does, actually

“It was a grim time in Britain,” he said. “I used to apologize to people who were visiting,” a bit like how American liberals used to apologize for George W. Bush, or, well, Torontonians for Rob Ford. Director Warchus joked that Nighy used to stand at Heathrow Airport holding a sign to say sorry for Maggie.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Hannah YoonLeft to right: Actors Faye Marsay, Bill Nighy, Ben Schnetzer, and Andrew Scott clap at the end of a press conference for "Pride" at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014.

THREE THINGS YOU DID NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PRIDE

1. Bill Nighy was passionate about making the film

Nighy said he still doesn’t understand homophobia, and that the miner’s strike was a scandal, a “civil war” deliberately provoked by Thatcher to “crush communities all over the country, communities of decent working men and women.” So the script landed in eager hands, and Nighy loved it from the start. “Good scripts are rare and funny scripts are almost never,” he said. “I’d have done anything to be in it. Well, almost anything.”

2. Even cast members who wouldn’t remember Thatcher’s government were inspired by proxy

“We want people to leave the theatre fired up,” Ben Schnetzer said, while Faye Marsay, born in 1985, chastised fellow members of her generation for their relative apathy: “It’s called activism. It’s about being active. We need that, man. Stop hiding behind the [petition] forms on your laptop.”

3. It all started with Beresford debating with an ex about politics

Around 20 years ago, a young Beresford asked his somewhat older boyfriend at the time, “Why should I support the miners? They don’t support me,” as Beresford recalled. “And he said, ‘Well, let me tell you a story.’ And that’s when I first heard it.”

Jackson, an original member of Gays and Lesbians Support Miners, said many journalists and writers have visited him over the years to ask about the solidarity campaign, but nothing ever came of those enquiries. So the intersection between gay rights and the miners’ strike in Thatcher’s Britain remains virtually unknown even there.

Said Warchus: “This is pretty much astonishing news for anybody. People haven’t heard [this story]. That’s … hard to believe.”

One twin with the gene mutation had 40 per cent fewer lapses of performance during 38 hours without sleep and required less recovery sleep afterward – sleeping only eight hours after the period of extended sleep deprivation compared with his twin brother, who slept for 9.5 hours.

“This study emphasises that our need for sleep is a biological requirement, not a personal preference,” said Dr Timothy Morgenthaler. The study is published in the journal Sleep.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/health/researchers-find-gene-variant-enables-people-like-margaret-thatcher-to-function-on-just-four-hours-sleep/feed1stdbeautiful in her sleepGerald Penny / The Associated Press FileKelly McParland: Gloria Steinem can lead women to politics, but she can't make them change ithttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/kelly-mcparland-gloria-steinem-can-lead-women-to-politics-but-she-cant-make-them-change-it
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Gloria Steinem turned 80 this week, an event the New York Timescelebrated with a fawning tribute to her continued good looks and ability to fly around the world (in “coach” yet) to ride on elephants.

“Steinem occupies a singular place in American culture,” the article professed.

“In the 1960s and 1970s, the whole concept of women’s place was transformed — discrimination was outlawed, hearts and minds were opened. In the history of our gender, this might have been the grandest moment. There were all kinds of reasons that the change happened at that particular time, and a raft of female leaders who pushed the movement along. But when people think about it, Gloria Steinem is generally the first name that pops up. She’s the face of feminism.”

One of two reasons cited for this was her physical appearance. “For young women who were hoping to stand up for their rights without being called man-haters, she was evidence that it was possible to be true to your sisters while also being really, really attractive to the opposite sex.” The other was her empathetic personality. She was feminism’s version of the approachable politician, the one you’d feel comfortable having over for a beer.

On her birthday I happened to watch The Descendants, a George Clooney movie in which he learns his wife, lying in hospital in a vegetative state, had been cheating on him. Informed by her friend that “it wasn’t her fault,” Clooney retorts: “Nothing is ever a woman’s fault.”

AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)Margaret Thatcher played the game as she found it, and still has enemies for it.

Just before Steinem’s birthday, Alberta Premier Alison Redford was pressured into quitting her job by a caucus revolt over a spending scandal and her handling of it. Redford had a habit of running up big travel bills and, when called on it, failed (in the view of her fellow Progressive Conservatives) to adequately recant. This fired up public anger and put their seats in danger, further fuelling their anger. In the end she had to go.

Her departure set off a debate on whether she’d been treated fairly, or, as a woman, subject to double standards. Several media outlooks took up the debate. “Did sexism play a role in Alison redford’s downfall,” asked Global News. “Alison redford resignation: Did sexism play a role in her demise?” echoed the CBC via Canadian Press. “Some see gender politics at play in Alison Redford’s short term as premier,” reported the Calgary Herald.

Most of the commentators felt that sexism was definitely at play. Maybe that was because they mostly happened to be women, perhaps because sexism is viewed as a “women’s issue,” or because many men, other than academics, don’t want to expose their necks to this particular buzz-saw.

PostmediaAlison Redford: Sure she made dumb mistakes

Anne McLellan, the former Liberal MP, reflected a common theme when she observed that, sure Redford was partly to blame for her demise by her clumsy handling of the situation, but that didn’t alter the fact she’d been punished for her gender.

“There seems to be some standard that somehow it’s OK for men in public life to act a certain way. But if women do that, that makes them not nice ladies,” she said.

That idea — that men still get a break when trouble arises — appeared in many of the assessments. The Toronto Star’s Carol Goar conceded that both Redford and Kathy Dunderdale, who cut short her term as Newfoundland Premier under internal attack, made dumb mistakes. But everyone makes dumb mistakes, she noted.

Stephen Harper treats the members of his cabinet and caucus with less deference than any political leader in the land. He is not a good communicator, not a likeable leader and his party has been trailing the Liberals in the opinion polls for almost a year. But Tory MPs are not baying for his resignation. Former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty became increasingly isolated and autocratic over his nine-year tenure. But that did not force him to pull the plug. It was a multimillion-dollar spending scandal. Toronto Mayor Rob Ford , an international embarrassment, is still in office.

She’s right of course, but completely misses the point. Harper is safe in his job not because he’s a man, but because Conservatives still believe they have a better chance of winning with him than without him. The same was true of McGuinty: he quit because his growing unpopularity was putting his government’s survival at risk. (Rob Ford is irrelevant: since he doesn’t head a party, he can’t be ousted by it. Stripping him of his power is as far as Toronto City Council has the power to go, and it did). Redford’s caucus rebelled not because of her sex, her temper or her management style, but because they feared she would cost them their seats. If not for that they’d have backed her to the hilt no matter how much she spent; job security is everything to elected leaders, and Redford was endangering that of Alberta PCs. Besides, Redford was the fourth leader in a row forced out by the Alberta Tory dynasty, all while they were still premier. The other three were men. All for the same reason: like Redford, they’d become more of an electoral liability than an asset.

Stephen Harper is safe in his job not because he’s a man, but because Conservatives still believe they have a better chance of winning with him than without him.

Rather than defaulting to sexism, another aspect of women in politics might bear examining. Although the number of men still greatly outnumbers women, inroads have definitely been made. Until the demise of Dunderdale and Redford, Canada had five female provincial premiers. They still head the three biggest provinces. Andrea Horwath of Ontario’s NDP holds the balance of power in a minority government. Danielle Smith of Wildrose could be Alberta’s next premier if the PC decline continues. On a bigger stage, Hillary Clinton is the odds-on favourite to be the next U.S. president. Angela Merkel is in her third term as chancellor of Europe’s biggest power.

Yet there has yet to be any sign that powerful women have changed the way the game is played. The “boys club” still makes the same egregious errors when women are running it. As with so many men before her, Redford let her position go to her head and treated the public purse like a personal cash dispensary. Then, rather than own up, she tried to brazen it out. How male can you get? (She even dragged her family into it, just as men haul out their wives to face the cameras when they’re feeling really desperate).

Far from opening the way to more inclusive, empathetic politics, Pauline Marois as premier of Quebec has pursued a particularly nasty line of xenophobia and divisiveness, staking her future on a Values Charter that discriminates on religious grounds. Marois’s Quebec judges people by their language, faith and particulars of birth, assigning different levels of acceptability on the outcome. If luring more women to politics is to bring about change, one can only hope this isn’t the sort of change that’s in store.

You could trace this record back to Margaret Thatcher, the towering figure among women in politics over the past generation. Though Thatcher’s hold on her party, and her job, was far weaker in her early years than is popularly remembered — if not for the Falklands War she might never have finished her first term — her eventual longevity was based largely on the public’s view of her as stronger, tougher and more resolute than the men around her. Only a handful of women ever cracked her cabinet, as she wanted no rivals. According to Charles Moore’s definitive new biography, she was a poor manager, uninterested in pursuing lengthy spadework towards long-term goals. She hectored and berated and alienated colleagues. She only cemented her hold on the party when she jettisoned the “wets” with which she had surrounded herself out of a sense of insecurity, and replaced them with conviction politicians who shared her fierce faith in her own views.

Redford was the fourth leader in a row forced out by the Alberta Tory dynasty, all while they were still premier. The other three were men.

She played the game by the rules in place when she got there. Though she changed British politics, it wasn’t in any way that might relate to gender. Merkel has been no more a change agent in that regard than Thatcher, and it seems unlikely Clinton would have any more success in bringing fundamental change to the dystopic state of U.S. politics than Barack Obama, who was elected on that promise. It’s questionable whether Clinton would even try: her record has been more of a skilled team player, willing to manoeuvre within the existing parameters.

Maybe Gloria Steinem would see that as a victory of sorts. Women have shown they can play the game the same as men: capably enough, but also harshly, badly, self-servingly, cold-bloodedly. In some cases even more so than men. Thatcher was eventually ousted by her own party when, like Redford, she was deemed a threat to their jobs. She had misjudged her position and mishandled her own defence, and quit in the face of a leadership challenge. She wasn’t the first or last, man or woman. It’s just politics, and it doesn’t care much about sex.

LONDON — British spies hunted in vain for the creator of a fake recording of an alleged spat between British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and U.S. President Ronald Reagan, declassified documents revealed Friday.

Soviet spies, Argentine agents and British leftists were considered as possible pranksters, but an anarchist punk band later claimed responsibility.

The tape, sent anonymously to Dutch newspapers in 1983, purported to capture the two leaders sparring during the 1982 Falklands War between Britain and Argentina. A transcript shows Reagan urging Thatcher “to control yourself” and the British leader responding: “We have to use violence” to “punish” Argentina.

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British authorities quickly identified the recording as a forgery, compiled from clips of the two leaders speaking in earlier interviews.

Thatcher’s press secretary, Bernard Ingham, wrote to another aide that the Reagan section was “far too fluent and articulate for the man in ordinary animated conversation.”

The hunt for the perpetrator appears to have been inconclusive.

A letter to Thatcher from a Foreign Office adviser said the MI6 intelligence agency had considered Soviet spies, Argentine intelligence agencies and left-wing groups as possible culprits.

AP Photo/FileThatcher’s press secretary, Bernard Ingham, wrote to another aide that the Reagan section was 'far too fluent and articulate for the man in ordinary animated conversation'

But he said KGB involvement was considered unlikely, and an intelligence official concluded that “there is no information to indicate that any subversive group or individual in this country was involved in making this tape.”

The British punk band Crass later said it had created the hoax in a bid to sway opinion against Thatcher during Britain’s 1983 election. Thatcher won the vote in a landslide.

The papers were released Friday by Britain’s National Archives under a policy that declassifies many government papers after 30 years.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/punk-bands-fake-recording-of-reagan-thatcher-spat-sent-spies-scrambling-declassified-documents-say/feed1stdPresident Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher posing for photographers on the patio outside the Oval Office, Washington, D.C., July 17, 1987. British spies hunted in vain for the creator of a fake recording of an alleged spat between the two, newly released documents showAP Photo/FileSecret files reveal Margaret Thatcher’s private Reagan letters and former British PM’s obsession with her hairhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/secret-files-reveal-margaret-thatchers-private-letters-to-ronald-reagan-and-former-british-pms-obsession-with-her-hair
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/secret-files-reveal-margaret-thatchers-private-letters-to-ronald-reagan-and-former-british-pms-obsession-with-her-hair#commentsFri, 03 Jan 2014 01:42:00 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=409672

She was as well known for her immaculately coiffed hair, sharp suits and handbags as she was for her politics.

Now, previously unseen documents reveal just how far Margaret Thatcher went to maintain her image.

An analysis of her appointments diary, released by the National Archives, shows that she had her hair styled 120 times in 1984, an average of once every three days.

The diary was maintained by a member of her staff while she was in office.

It details meetings with ministers and heads of state, including Francois Mitterrand, the former French president, Prince Naruhito, the Crown Prince of Japan, and Prince Abdullah, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, as well as visits to Rome, Moscow and Brussels, media interviews, Cabinet briefings and photocalls.

It also gives an insight into her day-to-day life, including six visits to the dentist, the occasional swim and quiet evenings with her husband, Denis.

Her hair appointments were simply written as “hair” and usually took place at 8.30am or 9am. They probably involved styling using Carmen heated rollers. The brand, popular in the Eighties, was Thatcher’s favourite.

On Oct 31, the diary shows that the period after 9.30am was kept “free for make-up and briefing”. This was followed by an interview for Austrian television and then lunch with The Daily Telegraph.

Eight days later, “hair” at 8.30am was followed by a meeting with Robert Maxwell, the publisher, before dinner with the Prince and Princess of Wales at Kensington Palace.

ADAM BUTLER/AFP/Getty ImagesIn a file picture taken on October 16, 1995 Britain's Queen Elizabeth II (L) and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher (R) arrive at Claridge's in London for a dinner to celebrate the former prime minister's 70th birthday.

Mundane tasks were also chronicled. The entry on Sept 28 stated “keep morning free to clear our flat”. On Friday, April 20 she had a “quiet evening with Mr Thatcher”.

Thatcher’s 1984 summer vacation featured seven hair appointments, five bilateral meetings with foreign leaders and, on the third day, a visit to a chipboard factory.

The schedule for the U.K. premier’s 18-day visit to Austria and Switzerland wasn’t all work, of course. The program included periods for both “relaxation” and, on another day, “rest.”

Thatcher, who died last year, was famous for her punishing schedule. When a bomb went off in her hotel at 3 a.m. during her Conservative Party’s annual conference in Brighton on the south coast that year, she was still awake and working on her speech.

“She was only unhappy really when she was on holiday,” John Redwood, a Conservative lawmaker who at the time was head of her policy unit and her economic adviser, said in an interview. “All of us tried to reassure her that we’d behave and not do anything naughty.”

The government papers also cast more light on the closeness of Thatcher’s relationship with President Ronald Reagan. After Reagan’s re-election that year, when he won 49 of the 50 states, Thatcher sent him two notes: a formal one that was released to the press, and a private message.

AP Photo / File President Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher speak to reporters at the White House in Washington, June 23, 1982

The first opened: “I send you warm congratulations on your remarkable election victory.” The private note, sent over the U.S-U.K. hot line, was more effusive.

“Dear Ron,” it began. “What a victory! I cannot tell you how delighted I am. It will be a great tonic and reassurance for all America’s friends.” She went on to express the hope that they would continue to “consult privately and with complete frankness on all major international problems.”

AFP Photo / Files / M. SpragueMargaret Thatcher dances with Ronald Reagan following a state dinner given in her honor at the White House, November 16, 1988.

Her private secretary, Charles Powell, noted it would “not [underlined] of course be made public.”

Reagan’s reply was equally warm. “It was an honor and a privilege to receive such an endorsement from the American electorate,” he wrote. “I dare to say that I almost feel as if I am in your electoral league.” The British premier had also won two elections, in 1979 and 1983. Thatcher told Powell the response, too, shouldn’t be published.

Thatcher’s first appointment of 1984 was a New Year’s Day celebration at Chequers. The first guest to arrive, at 10.40am, was her daughter Carol, now 60. At 11am Jimmy Savile and other guests arrived before departing at 1pm.

On Jan 9 and 10 she had appointments with Rodrigo Moynihan, a portrait painter. In total, Thatcher had eight sittings with Moynihan but reportedly did not like the result, telling the artist that it looked like she was squinting.

The papers also reveal how little effort Thatcher went to in the case of Nelson Mandela. The South African anti-apartheid leader was then being held in a maximum-security prison amid mounting international clamor for his release.

South African Prime Minister P. W. Botha visited the U.K. in July. The minutes of a formal meeting between the two contain no mention of Mandela. A record of a private meeting, where only the two of them were present, based on Thatcher’s recollection, had her raising the issue once, and Botha replying that he couldn’t interfere with a judicial matter — the same answer she’d given him in the same meeting when he asked about a group of South Africans facing trial in Britain.

David Cameron’s failure to get Parliamentary backing for use of force against Syria was a political disaster. As I have remarked before in this space, not in 500 years of British Parliamentary history has a prime minister (or, before that, an English chancellor) called Parliament to approve the use of military force externally and in co-operation with allies, and been refused.

The British have changed war leaders for more purposeful men — Aberdeen for Palmerston, Asquith for Lloyd George, Chamberlain for Churchill. But Parliament has not returned to Westminster on a summons to approve a military intervention and slapped the prime minister in the face and gone back to its holidays — until two weeks ago. Since there is no precedent, it cannot be said that this is a matter of Parliamentary confidence. But, in fact, if a request for the authority to deploy the armed forces and attack a foreign adversary is not a confidence measure, it is difficult to see what is.

Neville Chamberlain easily won a confidence vote in May, 1940. But 41 of his fellow Conservatives voted against him, and 50 abstained; so he did the honourable thing and resigned, allowing King George VI to vest Winston Churchill with practically unlimited power as head of a national unity government in one of the most challenging times in British history. (Chamberlain dutifully continued as Conservative Party leader and a member of the war cabinet, until his health failed. He did not die until November, 1940, and so was able to witness the deliverance of Dunkirk and the victory in the Battle of Britain.)

In the circumstances, David Cameron should resign, and the Conservative caucus, which alone has the power to elevate and eliminate leaders of that party, should replace him with Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, former MP, and former editor of The Spectator (to which post my associate Dan Colson and I appointed him when we were the controlling shareholders of that magazine).

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Canadian readers may not be as familiar with some of Boris’ witticisms as the British are, though they have been somewhat publicized here. When he first ran for Parliament in 1997, he was asked why by a fellow journalist, and he replied: “They don’t put up statues of journalists, do they?” When he was campaigning, fruitlessly, in the great Blairite New labour sweep of that year, he arrived at a doorstep in his constituency canvas, and a lady came to the door and said he need not bother because she was already determined to vote for him. To the delight of onlookers, he replied: “Madame, I’m grateful of course — but why?”

For many years, London had been governed by the semi-Communist Ken Livingstone, until Margaret Thatcher became so exasperated with his antics that she revoked the charter of the London County Council and put one of the world’s greatest cities under direct rule from the Home Office (thus sharply improving local government there), and dismissed the occupants of the municipal council building (County Hall, on the South Bank, one of the largest buildings in England), and sold it to Japanese developers to be turned into an aquarium. (Plans subsequently changed.) Eventually, London was re-established as a functioning municipality, and Livingstone was returned as mayor in 2000, and then re-elected in 2004. Prior to the 2008 mayoral election, Livingstone appeared unbeatable because of his apparent hold on inner London unionized and aggregated minority votes. But then Boris entered the fray, referred to his opponent as “Mayor Leaving soon,” and ran on his personality and his opponent’s record. All the usual efforts to stir up prejudice against him as a toff, the alumnus of a famous school and university, backfired, and Red Ken was reduced to asking for the public’s vote because he himself was “not a comedian.” Johnson won the election, and has served as Mayor ever since.

Boris proved he was much more than a comedian, presiding over London’s 2012 Olympics is successful fashion. Over the years, he has become something of a folk figure. An associate of ours in London is one of many who have a photograph of him on her office wall: He is secular icon, like pictures of Franklin D. Roosevelt in West Virginia or Kemal Ataturk in Istanbul.

Boris always was ready to answer sectarian concerns by referring to one of his grandparents, as one was Protestant, one Roman Catholic, one Jewish, and one Muslim (the last was a Turkish minister of justice who was hanged for resisting the Kemalist revolution). My wife Barbara and I walked with him after Lady Thatcher’s funeral from St. Paul’s Cathedral to the reception at the Guild Hall, and it was a joy and an eye-opener to see Boris’ rapport with police and junior officials, and to hear his badinage with members of the public.

The UKIP, which has risen steadily in the polls and in European and local elections, now has about 20% popular support

If installed as prime minister, his first order of business will have to be to backtrack on Cameron’s misconceived dismissal of Nigel Farage’s United Kingdom Independence Party, as, in effect, a bunch of kooks and skinheads. Cameron was deliberately confusing the Eurosceptic UKIP with the British National Party, which truly is a racist organization. The UKIP, which has risen steadily in the polls and in European and local elections, now has about 20% popular support, spread fairly evenly throughout the country, taking huge numbers of votes from the Conservatives.

Cameron has plunged into a cul-de-sac, and his party cannot be re-elected without dismissing the hapless Liberal Democratic shilly-shalliers who are his coalition partners, and replacing them with the UKIP. I commend to interested readers some of the clips of Nigel Farage at the European Parliament, available on YouTube, where he has savaged the pretention and ineptitude of the Euro-federalists for their horrifying fiscal mismanagement and their addiction to regulating everything from the display of bananas on supermarket shelves to the size of condoms.

With Miliband, it would be back to the days of Old Labour, when corrupt unions would shut down workplaces if the shop steward had a bad game of darts

Nigel Farage is the most impressive of the current British party leaders. He is a veteran of the Royal Air Force, a cancer survivor, a politically incorrect smoker and drinker who has said from the start that Britain should never subscribe to the socialistic over-regulation of Europe and has been proved right at every turn. (Some readers may remember the evening last November in Toronto when Nigel spoke with John Crosbie, Mark Steyn and myself on a panel sponsored by Byron Capital Markets, and explained his sane and somewhat traditionalist British program with great wit and conviction.)

The current British leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party, would be as anachronistic and inept as François Hollande in France. With him at the helm, it would be back to Old Labour, with 98% tax rates, currency controls, and rule by corrupt labour unions, who shut down workplaces capriciously when the shop steward had a bad game of darts or an argument with his wife.

The relevance of this to Canada is that if the UK pulls itself together, stabilizes its relations with Europe and dispenses with all this Cameronian rubbish of post-Thatcher modernization, and radically applies common sense to public policy, Britain can flourish again and work with Canada and the new and much-improved government of Australia. And we can all start to rebuild the standing of the English-speaking countries after the Bush-Blair-Brown-Obama-Cameron slide, while waiting prayerfully for better days in Washington.

Early in Margaret Thatcher’s reign, one of her aides described her as “the reality principle in skirts.” It was a precise five-word definition of her attitudes and her career.

Sigmund Freud says the reality principle is what comes into play when “the actual conditions of living” force humans to modify their normal pleasure seeking. In Britain in the 1970s, the actual conditions of living were dire. State ownership had ruined many sections of society. Unions were ruining the rest.

Thatcher saw all this with more clarity than any other British politician. In three terms as prime minister, she did what she could to fix it. But there were many in Britain and elsewhere who didn’t want to see the world as it really was. Today, the same sort of people believe, against all logic, that widespread unemployment will be cured by increasing public debt.

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Looking at reality through open eyes is always difficult and sometimes painful. Those who do it will always be maligned by their dimmer contemporaries.

It matters what we think about the great figures of our age. Their accomplishments and failures shape our views of how public life should be lived.

A 2011 movie version of Thatcher’s life, “The Iron Lady,” demonstrated one way she exists in popular art. Reaction to her death earlier this year revealed another way.

“The Iron Lady” was a cowardly piece of work, and the ugly evasiveness of the filmmakers still sticks in my memory like a bad dream. They avoided her accomplishments and showed her as Alzheimer’s afflicted her: She fell apart, she talked with her dead husband and she remembered her life through a clouded mind.

According to the filmmakers, she was neither bad nor good; she was pathetic. Apparently, this was how the movie world wanted to see her: mind-impaired. The result was Oscars for Meryl Streep and her make-up artist and much praise for everyone else.

Then her death, earlier this year, revealed the meanest feelings that any democratic politician has aroused in modern times. Across Britain, her enemies threw spontaneous parties. In South London, someone rearranged the letters on the sign of movie house to read: “Margaret Thatchers (sic) dead LOL.” A famous Irish cricketer tweeted that he hoped death had been slow and painful. A video posted on YouTube showed a man laughing hysterically and singing “the witch is dead.”

What produced this obscene level of animosity? That question has been lurking in my mind while I’ve been reading Charles Moore’s recently published book, Margaret Thatcher: The Authorised Biography, Volume One: Not for Turning (Penguin).

Megan O'Toole / National PostPolice at St. James Park

One of the most talented Tory journalists in England, Moore was never part of Thatcher’s circle. He sees her faults as clearly as her virtues, and seems above all anxious to leave the future with a truthful picture of her.

His book is most sympathetic when he describes how much she had to overcome in order to reach even the level of a Conservative cabinet minister. Everything was against her. She was a genuine oddity, and not necessarily an attractive one. She was middle-class in a party that favoured aristocrats. She was trained as a scientist, an unwelcome rarity in the House of Commons. She was outspoken and had trouble understanding the feelings of others — a major handicap in politics. In an interview, she once said: “The strange thing is, people do resent it when you know the answers.”

Thatcher was disobedient because she thought she had a better idea

Feminists, particularly feminist scholars, should put her firmly among the Great Women of the 20th century, given that she vaulted over all these barriers and became, except for Churchill, the most influential prime minister of her century, not to mention the first woman to dominate British affairs since Elizabeth I. From the beginning, she set herself against the conventional wisdom of the leading Tory politicians. She was disobedient because she thought she had a better idea. (By contrast, Hillary Clinton is a party hack.) And she did all this honestly, in her own voice, without pretending to be someone else.

In Moore’s admirably detailed book, we move closely to her girlhood, her education, her marriage and the first phase of her career as prime minister. (Moore ends Volume One with the Falklands victory.) A.N. Wilson claims Moore’s book is “the greatest political biography since Morley’s Life of Gladstone,” which appeared in 1903. John Gray of the London School of Economics calls it “one of the greatest biographies in the English language.”

It is wonderfully good, often enthralling. It might even change a few minds.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was advised that Canadians’ sensitivity “is a fact of life” spurred on by the country’s “ham-fisted neighbour to the south,” in a set of confidential briefing notes prior to her Canadian visit in 1983.

Government files from 30 years ago, released this week by the British National Archives, included two telegrams dated Sept. 1 and Sept. 19, 1983 to No. 10 Downing Street to prepare Thatcher for her visit to Ottawa, Toronto and Edmonton. In them, Canada is described as a country that is “dominated commercially and culturally by the United States, but is inclined to resent this.”

The briefing notes from unnamed diplomatic staff also warn her of Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s “complex personality,” and his “unsound personal views on east/west problems and strategic balance.” Thatcher was also told that then-prime minister Trudeau’s desire to accompany her on her Canadian tour would “affect the nature” of her stops in Toronto and Edmonton, two provincial capitals of particular interest to the British leader because their premiers were conservatives.

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Canadian public opinion of the United Kingdom was not great, the notes explained. “The ordinary Canadian tends to think that Britain has turned her back on Canada and is now only interested in Europe,” but there would be opportunity for Thatcher to contradict this notion in her speeches and TV interviews.

The relationship between Canadian and British armed forces was described as “excellent,” although it had “soured somewhat in recent times through what the Canadians see as excessive charges for training courses and other related items,” wrote the diplomats.

“This may reduce the extent of Canadian training in the UK and thereby our influence but might also result in increased charges for the excellent training facilities that we enjoy in Canada – mostly in Alberta.”

The notes described westerners as “suspicious of everything coming from eastern Canada,” and noted then-premiers Bill Davis of Ontario and Peter Lougheed of Alberta were powerful politicians who could have led the federal Conservative party had they not “cancelled each other out.”

Peter Bregg / The Canadian Press British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is greeted by Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau as she arrives on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ont., Sept. 26, 1983.

Giving a glimpse into the Brits’ views of Canadians, the first telegram pointed to the opportunity for Thatcher to influence Canadian defence and economic policy, but advised her not to be “too blunt.” Thatcher could be critical of the “inadequate Canadian defence effort, restrictions on British Banks … and Protectionist trade barriers” so long as she was gentle about it. “Canadians are inordinately sensitive,” the note said.

An updated telegram sent weeks later noted that a Korean Airlines flight that had been shot down by the Soviet Union on Sept. 1, 1983 – an attack that shocked many nations – had killed 10 Canadians. The attack on the passenger flight was a reminder of the threat of the USSR, the note said. “Those opponents of the cruise missile who like to represent the Soviets and the Americans as equal threats to peace are finding it harder to sell their message. And many Canadians who have grown used to a low level of defence spending may be readier to think again.”

Thatcher appeared to take this advice. In her speech to the Canadian House of Commons on Sept. 27, 1983, she alluded to the attack on the passenger plane, and said NATO allies need to position themselves against the Soviet Union with force.

“That system was founded and sustained by force. … We have to live with it not as we would wish it to be but as it is. ” she proclaimed. “There must never be an imbalance in any range of armament that leads to the conclusion that aggression against us might succeed,” she said.

British government files from 1983, opened to the public for the first time today, include an official’s view of the message Queen Elizabeth II would have broadcast to the nation in the event of World War III.

The speech was drafted as part of a war-games exercise codenamed Wintex-Cimex, in which officials in NATO countries acted out responses to an attack by Soviet-led forces. In 1983, they ended the simulated conflict by launching a limited nuclear strike on the enemy.

“I have never forgotten the sorrow and the pride I felt as my sister and I huddled around the nursery wireless set listening to my father’s inspiring words on that fateful day in 1939″ when World War II was declared, the scenario had the queen telling her subjects at noon on Friday March 4, 1983. “Not for a single moment did I imagine that this solemn and awful duty would one day fall to me.”

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Elsewhere, the files, published by the National Archives in London, show a period of tension in the normally close relationship between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. The cause was a U.S. invasion of Grenada, a Commonwealth country and former British colony, hours after Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe told Parliament there was no reason to expect such a move.

According to a memo from one of her aides, when the president called the prime minister to apologize for embarrassing her, he said that if he were visiting in person “he would throw his hat in the door first,” a reference to his past as a cowboy actor.

While Thatcher told her Cabinet that “Britain’s friendship with the U.S. must on no account be jeopardized,” the two leaders would shortly clash again, over possible U.S. retaliation for the bombing of a barracks in Beirut that killed 241 American servicemen.

AP Photo/Peter KempMargaret Thatcher with her husband, Dennis, in 1983. The files, published by the National Archives in London, show a period of tension in the normally close relationship between Thatcher and Ronald Reagan

Three weeks after the attack, Reagan sent Thatcher a message outlining his proposed response. While that document remains classified, it was sufficiently concerning for the prime minister to convene an immediate meeting to discuss how best to change the president’s mind.

An official recorded the British anxiety: “The U.S. spoke of carrying out a surgical operation but one could not depend on any action being sufficiently surgical.”

American military action in 1980 to rescue those held at the U.S. embassy in Tehran had ended in failure.

In the first draft of Thatcher’s response to Reagan, she described herself as “frankly apprehensive.”

Dear Ron. You face a very difficult decision, and I can well understand all the pressure upon you to take action. In such circumstances, leaders find themselves in a lonely position, and I want to let you have my frank views as someone who has been in a similar situation. The decision must be yours

“Dear Ron,” she wrote in the message she finally sent. “You face a very difficult decision, and I can well understand all the pressure upon you to take action. In such circumstances, leaders find themselves in a lonely position, and I want to let you have my frank views as someone who has been in a similar situation. The decision must be yours.” Thatcher had gone to war the previous year after Argentine forces invaded the Falkland Islands.

It took five days, and another note from Thatcher, before Reagan cabled back. “I have decided not to take any military actions at this time,” he said. “I want you to know how much I appreciate your frank views on this very difficult matter.”

The threat of nuclear war, deliberate or accidental, hangs over the files. With the U.S. preparing to site cruise missiles at its Greenham Common base in southern England, Thatcher was urged to press for a “dual-key” system, under which a British officer would have to consent before a weapon could be launched.

In the course of investigating the option, the government learned that the only time there had been such a system, on Thor missiles in the early 1960s, a Royal Air Force technician had discovered that the British key also turned the American lock.

Still, Defence Secretary John Nott told Thatcher he was worried about the level of opposition to siting cruise missiles in the U.K. and that he’d “sleep more safely” if he knew there was a dual-key system.

Thatcher rejected the idea, on the grounds that it would imply distrust of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, and replaced Nott. The files show her dismissing as “an eccentricity” the women protesters at Greenham Common, who would stay outside the base in Berkshire until the missiles were removed in 1991.

The queen’s speech in the Wintex-Cimex exercise has the monarch urging families to remain united in the face of war and to give assistance to those in need.

“Help those who cannot help themselves, give comfort to the lonely and the homeless and let your family become the focus of hope and life to those who need it,” the message read. “As we strive together to fight off the new evil let us pray for our country and men of goodwill wherever they may be.”

The war-games file shows the level of imagination the officials running the exercise put into every aspect. A daily media briefing listed stories run by all the newspapers during the 15-day drill. As Orange forces — the codename for the Soviets — launched chemical attacks, the Daily Mail was asking why the government hadn’t issued biological-warfare suits to every citizen.

Chris Jackson/Getty ImagesThe royal retreat of Balmoral Castle, Scotland. The officials had the Sun newspaper reporting that the royal family had fled to Scotland and running a picture of Prince William, then eight months old, with his father. “Keep him safe Charlie: We shall be needing him,” was the headline.

There was even a line about 1983’s royal baby. The officials had the Sun newspaper reporting that the royal family had fled to Scotland and running a picture of Prince William, then eight months old, with his father. “Keep him safe Charlie: We shall be needing him,” was the headline.

That media briefing closed by reporting that it would be the last one, because the country had run out of paper on which to print news. “Morituri te salutamus,” the authors signed off — Latin for “We who are about to die salute you.”

Later that day, the officials playing the war game ended it by launching limited nuclear strikes against the Warsaw Pact forces, which led to a request for unconditional peace talks.

The files also feature an early appearance from William Hague, who would go on to lead the Conservative Party from 1997 to 2001 and is now foreign secretary. Then he was a 21-year-old applying for a job as a special adviser at the Treasury. He had first come to national prominence speaking to the 1977 Tory conference as a schoolboy warning of the approach of socialism in the U.K.

While the chancellor of the exchequer wanted to hire Hague, Thatcher blocked the move. “No — this is a gimmick and would be deeply resented by many who have financial and economic experience,” she scrawled on the chancellor’s letter.

Hague’s office said this week that “the foreign secretary’s view was that ‘Mrs. Thatcher was, as usual, right.”’

—Editors: Eddie Buckle, Fergal O’Brien

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/solemn-and-awful-duty-secret-files-reveal-queens-world-war-iii-speech-in-event-of-nuclear-attack/feed4stdThe Queen with Prince Philip in Vancouver in 1983. A speech drafted for the Queen in the event of an imaginary World War III had her saying "I have never forgotten the sorrow and the pride I felt as my sister and I huddled around the nursery wireless set listening to my father’s inspiring words on that fateful day in 1939"AP Photo/Peter KempChris Jackson/Getty ImagesCharles Moore: Radical, egotistical, romantic, innocent – the real Margaret Thatcherhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/charles-moore-radical-egotistical-romantic-innocent-the-real-margaret-thatcher
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/charles-moore-radical-egotistical-romantic-innocent-the-real-margaret-thatcher#commentsSat, 20 Apr 2013 12:30:42 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=113962

Inside the cover of the service sheet for Margaret Thatcher’s funeral on Wednesday was a passage from T.S. Eliot’s great poem “Little Gidding”, the last of his Four Quartets. One line says: “The end is where we start from.”

Beautifully planned though the funeral was, it was the unplanned bit that, for us inside the cathedral, was the most striking. As the west doors opened to take the coffin out, the noise of the crowd cheering swept in upon us. Her end was extraordinary, in the passion of conflicting kinds, which it evoked, and in its global impact. It is difficult for all of us not to start from that end, and work backwards.
But for many years now, I have been writing Mrs Thatcher’s life. I have been wrestling with the point, so obvious that people almost forget it, that when you live your life, you do not know what is going to happen next, let alone where it will end.

You will not find, so far as I know, in any of her millions of words, any condemnation of anything ever done by the British empire

Lady Thatcher was 87 years old when she died. Perhaps the only person in St Paul’s who could remember her beginnings was a woman called Shirley Ellis. Starting shortly before the war, she used to walk every day to school in Grantham with the future prime minister. She remembers Margaret informing her, on one of these walks in 1940, that the Germans had just parachuted into Holland. The young Margaret would arrive at Shirley’s parents’ house, always early (that was a habit which never left her), and then the two of them would continue together across the river Witham to their grammar school. “As the coffin passed me,” Shirley told me on Thursday, “I quite suddenly could not stop crying. It was the feeling that so much had happened.”

So much, indeed. My task has been not only to set it all out, but to bear in mind that sequence, to remember always that Margaret Roberts did not know that she would be Lady Thatcher, LG, OM, FRS, world statesman. Into the diary belonging to her then boyfriend (not Denis) in 1949, Margaret interpolated a note of their visit to Newmarket races. “I SAW PRINCESS ELIZABETH, AND SHE SAW ME!” she wrote excitedly. That was her first sighting of the woman whose eighth prime minister she would become. On Wednesday, that woman, our Queen, stood beside her coffin.

It was her idea that I should be her authorized biographer. Yet, instinctively, she did not want her life examined.

One of the difficulties of political biography is that the unbelievable pressure of public events which a senior politician experiences threatens to obscure that person’s human nature. This could easily happen with Mrs Thatcher because, in her tumultuous 11 and a half years at No 10, events came thicker and faster than ever before. She fought the Cold War, a hot war (in the Falklands), inflation, and the trade union leadership; she narrowly avoided assassination. Though fascinated by the big picture, she also threw herself upon every detail of public policy that came her way. It would be easy to write a book about her which spent all its time merely reciting these events and these details, and, in doing so, lost sight of its subject.

Although I wrote this book at the invitation of Lady Thatcher, I sometimes felt that she rather hoped that this would happen. For someone who was, like all great leaders, egotistical, she was remarkably keen to efface the personal. She was not a good historian of herself. When I tried to pin her down about some event in her career, particularly anything that she could represent to herself as private, she was often evasive. If I had been forced to rely solely on her own witness, unassisted by family – most notably her sister Muriel – I would have had a very partial story to tell. If I had not studied tens of thousands of papers, hundreds of letters and talked to hundreds of friends, critics, colleagues, staff and family, I would have learnt from her little on which I could rely.

All politicians often have to say things that conceal or avoid important facts. She certainly did this quite often; but she did it with a visible discomfort which often undermined her own subterfuge.

“Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts”, says the Prayer Book funeral which was used on Wednesday. As a good, plain Christian, Lady Thatcher accepted this, but she permitted that knowledge to the Almighty on a “need to know” basis. For mere human beings, she preferred the material to remain what governments call “classified”. She gave me access to herself and all her personal and political papers. It was her idea that I should be her authorized biographer. Yet, instinctively, she did not want her life examined. I sometimes think that one reason for her intense, religious dedication to work was that she did not want to examine it herself.

From the biographer’s point of view, of course, this makes her an even more interesting subject, an even greater challenge. And although Mrs Thatcher was guarded, she was also instinctively truthful. All politicians often have to say things that conceal or avoid important facts. She certainly did this quite often; but she did it with a visible discomfort which often undermined her own subterfuge. Being someone who was never captured by a government machine, someone who always wanted to be out preaching a message in plain English, she could never quite avoid saying what she meant. “The truth will out” is an old saying, and it applied to her. In seeking it from her, I just had to try to acquire the knack of outing it.

Others will judge whether, so far – volume two will contain the greater part of her time in office – I am succeeding. All I want to say here is that, in Margaret Thatcher, one is dealing with such extreme apparent contradictions that the subject is much more difficult and much more interesting than any other politician since Churchill.

She was undoubtedly the most truly conservative person (though Jim Callaghan ran her close) ever to reach No 10 in the era of universal suffrage. You will not find, so far as I know, in any of her millions of words, any condemnation of anything ever done by the British empire (unless it be its premature retreat or its failure, as in parts of Hong Kong, to secure a freehold rather than a lease). She held in her imagination a romantic ideal of Britain as a benign Christian society in its Victorian high noon. In her personal style, she lived as if the Sixties had never happened. Her failure to understand jokes kept her beautifully innocent of her time. She asked her aides, who were forcing her to make play with the dead parrot sketch from Monty Python in one of her speeches, whether this Mr Python was “one of us”.
On the other hand, and equally undoubtedly, she was the most radical prime minister we have ever had. She was, in principle, ready to abandon every main economic policy which Britain had followed since the war. She was ready – happy, indeed – to subvert the East/West order of the world, and, of course, the male order of society. She lived her life in categories which men, particularly men in politics then, found baffling. Studying her early correspondence, I discovered that this most serious person wrote far more about clothes than about politics.

In understanding another person, one must never neglect the obvious. Once, she took me aside and whispered, “You know what’s the matter with Helmut Kohl?” I didn’t. “He’s a German!” she revealed. I laughed at this absurdity. Yet as I review my biographical subject, I ask myself, “You know what is the key to Margaret Thatcher?” and I answer, “She was a woman.”

The Daily Telegraph

Charles Moore is the former editor of The Daily Telegraph. The first volume of his authorized biography, Not For Turning, is to be published on Tuesday.

LONDON — As someone who frequented Margaret Thatcher and her inner circle at the height of her power and prestige — when, in the whole world, only John Paul II and perhaps Ronald Reagan were equivalent celebrities — I would like to draw a few lessons from her funeral on Wednesday, which I was pleased to attend.

Notwithstanding the anti-Thatcher carping of the BBC and the unspeakable Guardian newspaper, the crowds of protesters and demonstrators did not materialize. Everything that the abominably reckless and irresponsible majority of the national British media could do to incite such a debacle came to nothing. Instead, as the world watched, tens of thousands stood up to 20-deep along the parade route followed by the marching band and guard escort of Lady Thatcher’s caisson-borne and flag-draped coffin, doffed their hats and applauded politely, as “the lady” passed away and into legend.

There were picketers, but they were more than 10-to-one in favour of Thatcher. And as I walked with my wife, a few friends and the mayor of London (my former editor at the Spectator magazine, Boris Johnson) from St. Paul’s Cathedral to the Guildhall for the reception, between still-thick crowds of spectators who had every opportunity to jeer the formally dressed mourners but were entirely cordial, I thought of three comments from Canadian political history that seemed to me to be very pertinent.

The first was from the one-time publisher of the Quebec newspaper Le Devoir, Gerard Filion. Though one of Maurice Duplessis’ most relentless opponents, he wrote of Duplessis when he died in office in 1959: “Because he never feared responsibilities, he assumed them fully.” Margaret Thatcher, likewise, often suffered from performance anxiety, feared for the members of Britain’s armed forces in action, but never feared for an instant the duties of her great office.

The second was John Turner’s typically gracious remark on the occasion of his crushing defeat at the hands of Brian Mulroney on election night 1984: “In a democracy, the people are always right and the fact that they have not voted in my favour tonight does not shake my faith in them or in our system.”

The British people voted for Margaret again and again, and voted for her personally chosen successor when she was no longer Tory leader. In their way, they voted for her once more, on the last day. They were right, every time.

The last comment summoned to mind was W.L. Mackenzie King’s remark, as he walked in the funeral cortège of his long-serving Quebec lieutenant (and effective co-prime minister), Ernest Lapointe, in 1941: “How much one owes to be true to the people.”

The service was traditional Britain at its best. Practically everyone knew the great hymns, and didn’t have to consult the program

There are many still who would challenge Mr. King’s right to claim those virtues for himself. But no one could dispute the right of the supporters of Margaret Thatcher to think that about her, an almost guileless champion of straight political talk, and to feel the force of the truth of that comment on Wednesday.

In the aftermath of this last great Thatcher victory, the anti-Thatcherites, unable to acknowledge that they had been completely humiliated by a corpse in whose previous descent into dementia they had wallowed and gamboled for a decade, took all the cheap shots available.

The Financial Times — which had parted company with Margaret Thatcher over Europe and is still steering by Euro-stars that went dark and cold a decade ago — retreated to aerated suppositions that most of the crowds that watched the funeral cortège pass were composed of the indifferently curious. Tens of thousands of people don’t stand for extended periods in cool and intermittently rainy weather to have a one-minute snapshot of something that arouses their indifference.

Much was made of the antiquarian terminology of the high Church of England: the profusion of virgers (a word that the FT managed to misspell), acolytes, crucifers, the lord mayor’s “sword of mourning,” a ceremoniarius. The observation that the deceased lay under the “perfect curves” of the great dome of Sir Christopher Wren in St. Paul’s, in contrast to the “sharp angles” of her career, was asinine sophistry.

The service was not only inspiring. It vastly transcended the sniggering about antiquarian Henrician ecclesiastical terminology. It was also traditional Britain at its best. All knew that the women should wear hats and the men morning coats or dark suits. Practically everyone knew the great hymns and didn’t have to consult the program. There was no talking during the service nor any impatience to exit at the end of it, and all the appropriate ecclesiastical gestures and deferences to the monarch were observed.

The reception at the Guildhall was also a victory for Thatcherism. Few of the old grandees had gone on to greater things, but almost all of them were there, including many in their 90s, and all had the dignity of age, the ruggedness of survival, and the bearing of those who had served with distinction and with pride, and were without apology now.

Britain is adrift today, and the country is clearly skeptical that those contending for its approval are worthy of it. But despite the carping of all those who would debunk every British tradition and historic achievement, the people, led by their monarch of 61 years, (who turns 87 on Sunday,) would not be deterred from honouring one of Britain’s greatest and most arresting leaders.

Another political utterance resonates, from the far-left Labour MP, Dennis Skinner, who said in Parliament on the day after Margaret Thatcher announced that she would retire, in 1990, that she could “wipe the floor” with her opponents and rivals. She has, and may she, as we all incanted on Wednesday, enjoy eternal life and perpetual light.

Thanks to the many readers for their messages after last week’s column about the eye operation I described. I assure those who wondered if I received preferential treatment that I was processed quickly only because any delay would have led to permanent sight-loss and that anyone else would have been treated identically.

The Bishop of London’s sermon at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral Wednesday moved at least one member of the British Cabinet to tears. But what was really remarkable about the sermon was its measured tone. Somehow one felt that the bishop might not have been a fervent Thatcherite himself, and yet he found something kind to say to those close to the former prime minister — “it must be difficult for those members of her family and close associates to recognize the wife, mother and grandmother in the mythological figure” — and something personal to say about her as well.

He remembered Thatcher’s famous attentiveness to the people who worked for her and cited a warning she once gave him at a dinner: “Don’t touch the duck pate, bishop — it’s very fattening.” He reminded the congregation that this was a funeral, not a memorial service: Thus there were no eulogies and no politics, only reflections on life, death, faith, family and continuity.

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And formality was exactly what was required. The congregation included several people who had been Thatcher’s bitter political opponents — Michael Heseltine and Geoffrey Howe, for example, two of the Tory leaders who brought her down — as well as three of her successors as prime minister: John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, all of whom might have had cause to resent her at different times. But in a well-run democracy, one shows respect for elected leaders, especially leaders who were in power for a long time, even if one comes from the opposite party or holds different views.

The rule of law and parliamentary democracy were precisely what was on display at St. Paul’s

Intuitively, the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral also seemed to understand this when he went out of his way to “pray for this nation, giving thanks for its traditions of freedom, for the rule of law and for parliamentary democracy” in his invocation. Around me, several people nodded. I arrived with the unusually large Polish delegation — prime minister, finance minister, foreign minister (to whom I am married) and former President Lech Walesa — but I happened to be sitting near the Hungarian prime minister and the Bulgarian president, as well as various Czechs, South Africans, Germans, Estonians and Italians.

Not all of those countries have always had the rule of law or been democracies. I’d wager that even now, not all of them give thanks for the rule of law and democracy at the funerals of their senior statesman. But the rule of law and parliamentary democracy were precisely what was on display at St. Paul’s, and thus the controversy Margaret Thatcher created in life was replaced by a great calm.

It seemed to come out of nowhere. No one knew who’d started it; perhaps it was purely instinctive. But as the hearse came into view, the crowds found themselves breaking into applause, applause that followed the hearse all the way along the route, until it drew up at the church of St Clement Danes. Then, once the coffin had been loaded on to the gun carriage, and the horses moved off, the applause started again, and followed the procession all the way to St Paul’s.

Down the roads it spread and spread, gently rippling, a long, impromptu chain of respect and appreciation.

The applause wasn’t rowdy; there were no whoops or whistles. It was steady, warm, dignified. But it was also, somehow, determined. At Ludgate Circus, protesters began to boo and jeer, only to find the rest of the crowd applauding all the more loudly to drown them out. It has often been said that Baroness Thatcher appealed to the silent majority. They weren’t silent now.

Murray Saunders – WPA Pool/Getty Images)They wanted to create a different social model.
Strip away the cacophony of disparate chants and placards, and what remains is the core principle of the five-week protest camp called Occupy Toronto.
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Though the borders of St. James Park did not constrain the group’s larger social-justice message, protesters touted their cluttered tent city as direct evidence that “a different world is possible” — even after police and bureaucrats united this week to quash it. But did the short-lived encampment, wrapped in its flag of ultra-democracy, truly showcase a viable alternative social model, or did it only bolster the case for convention?
[np-related]
“In terms of let’s role-model a different kind of society and a different way of being political, those are wonderfully brave and hopeful and in some ways romantic attempts to fundamentally redesign social relationships, social interaction. I think they run up against some harsh realities pretty quickly,” Ryerson University political scientist Myer Siemiatycki said. “I think we saw that happen here in Toronto. The [camp] was not self- sustainable.”
Even on the most basic levels, the mini-society inside St. James Park was reliant on the material supports of traditional society. Erected on public parkland in defiance of city bylaws, the camp survived on the goodwill of a broader society many members spurned, with occupiers harvesting donations of everything from food to camping gear.
Participants described the park as a microcosm of a more equitable world — a leaderless society where everyone’s voice merited equal attention. Yet even in the small-scale context of St. James Park, the model failed on a number of fronts.
Group members routinely hijacked daily general assembly meetings to gain a soapbox for tangential causes. The meetings plugged along at a grinding pace, with all announcements, pronouncements and opinions welcomed, no matter how repetitive or off-base. And so it was that simple decisions, such as whether to print posters bearing the Occupy slogan and message, ran into egregious delays.
“We live in a culture where people have been silenced for such a long time, that they have so much to say,” explained Occupy Toronto facilitator Mischa Saunders. “It can be very, very difficult to hear everybody’s voice while still continuing with the day-to-day-business. I think that’s something we wrestled with every day.”
Perhaps because of this, traditional hierarchical structures began to creep in, manifesting themselves in the group’s daily routine. A subset of occupiers, while refusing to be labelled leaders, fell into the role naturally, with the same faces wrangling crowds and moderating meetings each day. The longer meetings dragged on, the more willing other occupiers became to issue the hand signal for “wrap it up.”
During one general assembly on eviction preparedness, about 150 occupiers turned out, but as the hours stretched on with no firm action plan emerging, attendance gradually dwindled to a handful.
The excessive time spent on process may explain why, despite pledging at the outset to release a clear mission statement, Occupy Toronto’s encampment ended without ever articulating a tangible set of demands. The group was determined to camp out; until what, no-one seemed to know.
Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday, who was among the movement’s City Hall critics, said a society built in the image of the St. James Park encampment would quickly collapse.
“I don’t think civilized society could exist without following some rules and bylaws.... If the leader’s not elected, the leader would just be someone that’s assumed the role without having a democratic vote on the matter. I think a lot of those things would not sit well with the average resident,” Mr. Holyday said, noting the vast majority of Torontonians did not appear to be buying in to the Occupy model.
“Even at its peak [in the camp] we were only dealing with maybe 300 or 400 people,” he said. “That’s a long ways from changing the rules of society.”
Local councillor Pam McConnell (Toronto Centre-Rosedale) disagreed, describing the camp as “the medium, not the message.” While the group’s model for hearing all voices may not be suited for a larger stage, she said, “it was quite an interesting social experiment.”
The University of Toronto’s Megan Boler, an expert in social movements and political protest, said the camp successfully demonstrated a new form of participatory democracy while highlighting the need for a better social safety net. Many homeless and mentally ill residents who were “falling through the cracks” arrived at the camp and found comfort, she noted.
“I don’t think anybody expected, here’s the model of how our utopian future should look. We should all live in a camp or live in one society where food is doled out twice a day,” Ms. Boler said, noting the real question will be how the movement evolves after losing its physical home base.
“Without the face-to-face of the camp... what shape will the Occupy movement take now?”
<em>National Post</em>
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Ever since the news of her death last Monday, we have been told one thing above all else about the former prime minister: that she was divisive. Well, maybe she was. But you wouldn’t necessarily have known it yesterday along the route of her funeral procession. From Westminster to St Paul’s, mourners crammed the pavements, in places standing more than 12 deep.

In the build-up there’d been rumours of violent protests: lumps of coal, symbolising the fury of the miners, would be thrown at her coffin. In the event, roses were the only things thrown.

Some estimates put the number of people on the streets at 100,000. A low figure, perhaps, if compared with a major royal occasion; the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge is thought to have attracted a million. But this was for a prime minister, and on a working day.

On the pavements of the Strand, outside St Clement Danes – the church of the RAF – there was barely room to breathe. Behind the barriers, the crowd had been swelling for more than an hour before the hearse was due to arrive. Men climbed railings to see above the massed heads. Children clambered on to the bench of the bus shelter. Office balconies thronged. People shifted restlessly, desperate for a view.

As the coffin was borne down the steps into the light of the day, the crowds outside gave three cheers. Like the applause that had followed the coffin on its journey to St Paul’s, the cheers were spontaneous.

Many people wore suits or dark dress; some were in bowler hats and tweed. One man had brought his pet Chihuahua, Cindy; even it was in black, clad in a tiny coat with “Good night” inscribed across it.
All along the barriers and around the church stood police; hundreds of police. On first glance an intimidating sight, but the effect was somehow softened by the fact that every one of them was wearing spotless white gloves, like magicians’. In front of the church loomed the statue of Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris, the chief of RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War. Glaring sternly, hands folded behind his back, he seemed to be wearing a look that said anyone intent on violence would have him to answer to.

The hearse arrived to applause. Then, as the coffin was carried into the church by the bearer party, there rose a sea of arms, as each mourner struggled to establish a clear view for his or her camera phone.
While the service was under way inside, the crowds stood silent. A breeze ruffled hair. Raindrops dabbed cheeks.

Then there sounded the dolorous clang of the bell. The coffin was carried out of the church and placed on the gun carriage. And, as the procession began – to the pound, pound, pound of a cloth-muffled drum – there was applause once more.

I glanced at the elderly woman standing alongside me. Her face was a mask of tears.

After the procession had moved on, many people stayed where they were, reflecting on what they’d seen. “It was wonderful,” said Richard Barnes, 69, a retired farmer. “From all the stories this week you’d have thought there’d be twice as many protesters as supporters, but it’s been nothing like it. I saw one [anti-Thatcher] placard across the road, and that’s it.”

He’d have seen more protesters further along the route – but not many. Some turned their backs on the procession. Some brandished placards, attacking the cost of the funeral. Some waved milk bottles, as a reminder of the old taunt, “Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher”. Some shouted: “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, dead, dead, dead.” A few, bizarrely, squabbled with each other (“You’ve ruined this protest!”).

Lady Thatcher’s enemies, fighting among themselves: it was like the 1980s all over again.

Peter J. Thompson/National PostAn Occupy Toronto protestor reaches for a flag as Police and City of Toronto workers move in to clean up and evict Occupy Toronto protesters at Toronto's St. James Park, Wednesday November 23, 2011.

For each and every minute of the journey from St Clement Danes, a gun salute was fired. At last the procession came to a halt at St Paul’s. At 11am sharp, the 2,000 guests inside the cathedral, including the Queen, the Prime Minister, and Lady Thatcher’s children, Sir Mark and Carol Thatcher, rose as one. Lady Thatcher’s grandchildren, Michael, 24, and Amanda, 19, walked ahead of the coffin.

Following the first hymn, He Who Would Valiant Be, Amanda Thatcher gave a reading, from Ephesians 6 10-18. How young she looked up there, tiny and alone. To begin with, her voice cracked and quavered, but she did not let the occasion, or the emotion, overcome her. “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil,” she read, voice strengthening with every line. Her words echoed through the huge, booming silence.

The second reading came from David Cameron, John 14 1-6 (“I am the way, the truth and the life”). He read steadily and solemnly. His wife Samantha, wearing a pussy-bow blouse in tribute to Lady Thatcher, watched him from the pews.

The address was given by The Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres. It was well judged, well written, well spoken. “After the storm of a life lived in the heat of political controversy,” he said, “there is a great calm. The storm of conflicting opinions centres on the Mrs Thatcher who became a symbolic figure, even an ’ism’. Today the remains of the real Margaret Hilda Thatcher are here at her funeral service. Lying here, she is one of us.”

The television camera cut to George Osborne, the Chancellor. Down his cheeks, tears glistened.
Out in Ludgate Hill, while all this was going on, a small group of the most dedicated admirers gathered around a portable radio. Clutching printed copies of the order of service, they sang along to every hymn.After the prayers, the choir in St Paul’s sang In Paradisum, from the Requiem Mass by Gabriel Faure; then the congregation joined them for the patriotic hymn I Vow to Thee, My Country. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, gave the blessing. “Support us, O Lord, all the day long of this troublous life,” he intoned, “until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, the busy world is hushed, the fever of life is over and our work is done. Then, Lord, in your mercy, grant us a safe lodging, a holy rest, and peace at the last.” Finally, as the Queen looked on, the coffin was carried out of the cathedral by the bearer party.

Then, something remarkable. As the coffin was borne down the steps into the light of the day, the crowds outside gave three cheers. Like the applause that had followed the coffin on its journey to St Paul’s, the cheers were spontaneous. As much as appreciation, they may have been an expression of relief; relief that a day that had been threatened by protest and violence had instead passed with dignity. A respectful procession followed by a moving service. No hysteria, no hyperbole. Of course there had been pomp and pageantry: the uniforms, the military bands, the towering grandeur of St Paul’s. But in its own way the occasion was understated – or as close to understated as a ceremonial funeral can be.

In late afternoon, when the hearse arrived at Mortlake Crematorium in south-west London, it was met, for one final time, with mourners’ quiet applause.

This was a day, in short, of tributes untarnished. A day when, to a far greater degree than expected, abuse was overcome by respect, violence by decency, and hatred by love.